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Sunny teepee wedding day at Bridge House Barn

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of witnessing one of the most excited bride I've seen on her big day. Seeing Georgina's joy throughout her's and Mark's wedding at Bridge House Barn was both lovely and humbling. The big grin Mark wore all day showed just how pleased he was to be marrying such a lovely bride.

The weather was touch-and-go that morning, with rain falling as I drove to the venue. As the fun of the bridal prep continued, the clouds cleared and the sun came out in time for a gloriously bright ceremony and celebrations. With such great weather it was wonderful to be shooting an outdoor wedding. The rustic teepee reception and outdoor games all the way through to the evening celebrations and LED light entertainment show were marvellous.

Thank you for sharing your day with me, Mr and Mrs Holland. I have no doubt that you're both settling into married life very comfortably.

Here are a few words from Mark and Georgie's story, as well as a selection of memories I captured on their day.

"We met on Plenty of Fish. I’d recently moved to Birmingham and was looking to meet some new people. After a couple of pretty horrendous dates, I saw Mark’s profile and thought I’d message him. We chatted for a couple of weeks before meeting up and I had a really good feeling before we’d even had a date! After the first couple of dates, I knew he was a keeper!"

"Our engagement; we were on the beach at Alnmouth in Northumberland. We’d walked down to a section of the beach with hardly anyone around and sat for ages in the sunshine watching the waves. When we started walking back to the cottage, Mark said that he needed to go back for something… he then called me back and there were four glass bottles all with messages inside… after reading the first one, I started to realise what was going on and started to well up… by the time I’d read the last message I was in tears and turned around to see Mark on one knee with the most beautiful engagement ring shining in the sunshine… I can’t actually remember what I said, but I know I said yes… and then screamed!!"

"We started off by working out what was the most important thing for us - we wanted the day to represent us, be relaxed and informal. I spent hours looking at wedding magazines and blogs to get as many ideas as possible. We decided we wanted an outdoor wedding near water where we could choose our caterers and not be tied to venue ’packages’ so we started looking for venues and saw an open day was happening at a farm in Leicestershire which sounded good so we thought we’d go along to see what it was like. Bridge House Barn felt amazing as soon as we saw the tipis in the sunshine with the canal behind. Emma from Bridge House Barn was so welcoming and made us feel relaxed straight away. So many people had warned us that wedding planning was going to be so stressful that we had prepared ourselves for all decisions to be really difficult."

"We met Jo from Perfect Ceremony at the open day and we loved her from the start… she was the first booking we made as we knew from that first meeting the she would be the perfect Celebrant for us. Sami Tipis were the supplier for the tipis at the open day and Jodie was so helpful that the decision of who to supply the tipis was also an easy one! We left there knowing that we had found a place where we could have a wedding that we knew we could make completely right for us! We looked at a couple of other venues, but none felt as right as Bridge House so we booked it. The most difficult part was choosing a band to play… We’ve got very different music tastes… Everything else fell into place from there… no where near as stressful as everyone told us it would be!""

"There were moments of slight insanity such as the day before the wedding when I realised that we’d left all of the milk bottles at home that we were going to use as vases… cue my fantastic Maid of Honour Bec driving us to the local supermarket to find cheap jars of pickled onions and lemon curd so we could empty them out to use as vases… people looked at us a little strange, especially when we were emptying out pickled onions into a bin bag in the supermarket car park! It’s moments like this that you look back on and laugh about so it all adds to the fun!It definitely helped that we were both very relaxed about the whole day, and kept reminding ourselves that it would be amazing whatever happened!"

"I know it sounds cliche, but the whole day was immense! Standing opposite Mark in front of all of our closest family and friends was overwhelming and so exciting… I think my feet even did a little dance because I was so excited! I literally could not smiling the biggest smile all day!"

"Choose what’s important to you as a couple and keep reminding yourself that the most important thing is that you’re getting married… everything else is just the icing on top! Stay relaxed and enjoy every moment… the day goes past so quickly… make sure you take a few moments just the two of you to take it all in."

The credits:

Rings: Samson Gold in the jewellery quarter in Birmingham. Mark designed the engagement ring himself and they then made the wedding ring to fit around it (samsongold.co.uk)Wedding Venue: Bridge House Barn, Kibworth, Leicestershire (bridgehousebarn.co.uk)Tipis: Sami Tipi (samitipi.co.uk)Bell Tents: Bell Bliss - Used for the accommodation for all of the Bridesmaids and Best men (bellbliss.co.uk)Wedding dress: Purchased from a bridal shop in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham called Wedding Quarter (weddingqtr.co.uk)Wedding suit: NextBridesmaids dresses: For Her and For Him Online (forherandforhim.com)Hair and makeup: My talented niece Amy was in charge of my hair and I booked Donna Rhodes (athomewithyourhairstylist.co.uk) for my other bridesmaidsFlowers: Bouquets and button holes from Lee Berrill Florists in the village where I grew up and the flowers for the tables and venue were sourced online from Triangle Nursery (trianglenursery.co.uk)Celebrant: Jo from My Perfect Ceremony (myperfectceremony.co.uk)Food: Fish and chips van (kkcatering.co.uk) for the daytime, Hidden Gem Wood Fired Pizza for the evening (hiddengempizza.com)Cake: Supplied by my talented Brother-in-Law Paul (and sister Karen!) was the world-famous Death by Oreo cake (find it at their cafe Tiffany’s in Brixham, Devon)Decorations: All of the decorations and little touches were done by us… no wedding planners needed - we kept it simple and focused more on the day rather than getting bogged down in too much detail and getting stressed about the little things.Band: Mojomatics (based in Manchester) - absolutely phenomenal!! Stationery: My talented husband designed all of our stationery (crezocreative.com)